straight off till I dragged with all my might, and felt that
either the line must break or my hands would be terribly cut.

"Give and take, Nat," cried my uncle.

"It's all give, uncle, and I can't take a bit."

I had hardly said the words when I was at liberty to take in as much as
I liked, for the fish was gone, and upon drawing in my line in a
terribly disappointed way, it was to find that the fish had completely
bitten through the very strong wire gimp, not broken it, but bitten it
as cleanly as if it had been done with a knife.

"That must have been a monster," said Uncle Dick. "But never mind, my
boy. Here, hold still and I'll loop on another bait."

He was in the act of doing this when Ebo began to dance about in the
boat, striving hard to drag in the fish he had hooked. His plan was to
haul in as quickly as he could, never giving the fish a moment's rest,
and any form of playing the swift, darting creature did not seem to
enter his head.

He seemed to have found his match this time, for the fish refused to be
dragged on board, but after a fierce struggle the black's arms were too
much for it, and a dozen rapid hand-over-hand hauls resulted in its
being hauled over the side, a sharp-nosed glittering silver-fish about
four feet long, and I was about to fling myself upon it to hold it down
and stop its frantic leaps amongst our tackle, when Ebo uttered a cry of
alarm, darted before me, and attacked the fish with his club, dealing it
the most furious blow upon the head, but apparently without any effect,
for as one of the blows fell, the great fish seemed to make a side dart
with its head, and its jaws closed upon the club, holding on so fiercely
and with such power that it was not until Uncle Dick had cut off its
head that the club could be wrenched away, when Ebo showed me the
creature's jaws full of teeth like lancets and pretty well as sharp.

"No wonder your wire was bitten through," said my uncle. "Hallo! is he
not good to eat?"

Ebo evidently seemed to consider that it was not, for the fish was
thrown over, and the fierce monster, that must have been a perfect
tyrant of the waters, had not floated a dozen feet before it was
furiously attacked and literally hacked to pieces.

There was no difficulty in getting fish that morning, the only thing was
to avoid hooking monsters that would break or bite through our tackle,
and those which were not good for food.

The reef literally swarmed with fish,